WebLibrarian

Description

This WordPress plugin started as a portable, cross-platform system that
the Wendell Free Library could use as a transition system from its current
paper card based circulation system to the system that will eventually
be rolled out by the regional library system. It has ‘morphed’ to a
web-based successor to Deepwoods Software’s Home Librarian 3 system.

This plugin implements a simple and basic, web-based, library catalog
and circulation system. There are short codes that can be added to
pages of a WordPress site to search and display items in the library
collection. And there are back-end (admin) pages that implement
management of the collection, management of patrons (users) of the
library, as well as implementing the functionality of a circulation
desk.

Installation

The plugin can be installed by uploading the Zip file to the plugin
installer or unpacking the zip file under the plugins directory.

There are some options that can be set, but these options are not needed
for basic operation. There are three short codes that can be added to
pages or posts for front end searching and display of your library
collection and there are a number of back-end (dashboard) pages for all
of the management of your library.

Please read the PDF User Manual (also available in
Italian) for complete documentation on using this plugin. This
is a fairly non-trivial plugin, and there is not a simple quick-start guide
for the impatient. The user manual files are 1548805 bytes long for the
Italian version and 1548666 for the Englist version and MD5 sums are
available. If you are having trouble opening the PDFs,
please check the size and the MD5Sum. If the size is right and the MD5Sum is
right, try another PDF viewer.

FAQ

Support is handled either with [Deepwoods Software’s Bugzilla][bugreport]
(submit any bugs and feature requests to the Bugzilla) or though the
[Deepwoods Software’s Support page][support] (use this for comments or
for general questions).

Installation Instructions

The plugin can be installed by uploading the Zip file to the plugin
installer or unpacking the zip file under the plugins directory.

There are some options that can be set, but these options are not needed
for basic operation. There are three short codes that can be added to
pages or posts for front end searching and display of your library
collection and there are a number of back-end (dashboard) pages for all
of the management of your library.

Please read the PDF User Manual (also available in
Italian) for complete documentation on using this plugin. This
is a fairly non-trivial plugin, and there is not a simple quick-start guide
for the impatient. The user manual files are 1548805 bytes long for the
Italian version and 1548666 for the Englist version and MD5 sums are
available. If you are having trouble opening the PDFs,
please check the size and the MD5Sum. If the size is right and the MD5Sum is
right, try another PDF viewer.

Where are the admin menus?

You’ve successfully installed the Web Librarian, but none of the admin
menus (Patrons, Collection, Circulation Types, Circulation Desk, or
Circulation Stats) show up. Why is this? This is because you are
probably logged in as the web site administrator (your user role is
Administrator). You need to create at least a user with a user role of
Librarian and then log in as this user. Optionally, you can also
create users with roles of Senior Aid or Volunteer, who have lesser
privileges — these latter users make sense if you are a large enough
library that has additional staff (“Senior Aid”) or uses additional
workers (“Volunteer”) who man the circulation desk(s). It is important
to read the subsection titled “User Role Setup” in the “Installation and
basic setup” section carefully and to be sure you understand it fully.

Which stylesheet (CSS) selectors can I use to modify the appearance of the front end?

This is described in the appendix of the user manual.

I am having a problem with the bulk upload.

Here are some tips relating to problems with bulk uploading a collection:

If you export a CSV file from Excel (and probably other ‘modern’ spreadsheet
programs as well), you should check the resulting CSV file with a plain text
editor. Things to look for include extra commas at the ends of lines
(‘phantom’ or empty columns) and strange characters, partitularly in the
headings and in barcodes (if you using your own barcodes).

Other issues involving issues with newline characters. Most of the time
WordPress will be running on a LAMP server (a Linux machine). Linux uses the
linefeed character (ASCII 10, Ctrl-j) as newline character. MS-Windows uses a
two character sequence for newlines: carriage return (ASCII 13, Ctrl-m)
followed by a linefeed (ASCII 10, Ctrl-j). MacOSX uses just a carriage
return (ASCII 13, Ctrl-m). Web browsers are supposed to normalize uploaded
plain text files, but sometimes this does not happen. It might be necessary
to fix things in advance of uploading.

Finally, try your upload in small chunks, at least until you get the process
worked out. Remember that most WordPress (PHP) installs have a limit on the
maximum size of uploaded files, so a really large database is going to have be
uploaded in chunks anyway.

How do I check an item out?

In order to check an item out, you need to load a patron record into the
circulation desk page. You can use the “Find Patron” button to search the
patrons by name and then select the proper result from the list of results
in the drop down and then click the “Lookup Patron” to load that patron’s
record. You can then enter the item’s barcode in the item barcode field and
click the “Checkout” button. It is possible to pre-load the item barcode
field before looking up the patron.

Search does not work – sends me back to my home page

This is caused by a conflict with permalinks and form handling. Answered in
the support forum on the WordPress site:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/search-doesnt-work-7

I’d suggest this solution:

Change your site’s permalink settings: on the dashboard select
Settings->permalinks, then select something other than the ‘default’.

I cannot open the user manual, it appears to be corrupt

Please check the size of the PDF (1548805 for user_manual_IT.pdf and 1548666
for user_manual.pdf) and also check the MD5 sum to make
sure you properly downloaded the file. The correct download urls are:

Reviews

Truly value your exertion in making this module. Good to run an online library. We have effectively setup and propelled a free online library for our group.
Great work. We created a new theme on your work and its all thanks to your work.Web Librarian
Much thanks 🙂

As a non-lending family history society, we wanted a plugin which would enable members to search the library catalogue and display results. We did not require the circulation side of it as we don’t lend materials. We also wanted the ability to enter the category and subject so have added those to the database_code_php so that the librarian can select from each without having to retype every time. The librarian can export to a CSV file (already provided), and can now search the collection using Title, ISBN, Keyword, Call Number etc and sort on those headings as well. This has the bones of a good program for our needs and I had searched long and hard before downloading this one.

I tried loading this onto a subdomain site with the theme ‘Evolve’. Each time the plugin uploaded and activated, but soon as I added a library user the subdomain site and my main site froze. I had to delete the plugin in order to restore. Maybe this is a good plugin but not for me. I have no option but to look for an alternative.

Changelog

3.5.2

3.5.1

3.5

Changed the localization slug from web-librarian to weblibrarian to conform
with https://make.wordpress.org/meta/handbook/documentation/translations/

3.4.8.7

Fix yet another XSS problem in front end short codes.

3.4.8.6

Fix additional XSS problems in front end short codes.

3.4.8.5

Fix XSS problem in front end short codes.

3.4.8.4

Fix pubdate error in short codes.

3.4.8.3

Corrected ordering of fields in long format short code.

3.4.8.2

Make date display and entry in forms consistent.

3.4.8.1

Remove USA specific State check (required two letter state).

3.4.8

Relaxed the State, Zip, and Telephone fields of patrons to allow for non-USA users.

3.4.7

Fix small error handling code in WEBLIB_Patrons_Admin.php.

3.4.6

Changed to use PHP5 constructors in Widget classes (WP_Widget).

3.4.5

Changed split() in includes/WEBLIB_Patrons_Admin.php to explode().

3.4.4

Added Czech language files.

3.4.3

Added Brazilian Portugese language module.

3.4.2

Minor bugfix for Patron Short Codes: removed unused functions and removed
references to undefined members (leftovers from copying ListTable code from
Admin land).

3.4.1

Added check for patron insertion falure.

3.4

Added short codes to put patron edit functions on the front side: editing
patron contact info along with hold and circs handling. This allows use with
plugins like WooCommerce that redirect away from the “normal” WP Admin
Dashboard.

3.2.3

3.2.2

3.2.1

Minor bug fix with Call Number column.

3.2

Added Call Number column to collection database.

Updated localization.

3.1

Minor documentation update for the contextual help for the options page.

3.0

Major code rewrite. All of the WP_List_Tables redone properly and
separated into separate source files. Adding the per_page screen options
properly.
Added bulletproofing to the collection import code: barcodes are now checked
and fixed as they are added — no more ‘broken’ databases!